Tuesday, November 8, 2011 THE IRISH TIMES 13 TOMORROW Rosemary Mac Cabe adds some sparkle to your winter wardrobe in Style SMALL PRINTS Then Tori Amos composed herself Tori Amos by year ■ Born in Newton, North Carolina, August 22nd, 1963 ■ Age five Started to compose instrumental pieces on piano, winning a TONY CLAYTON-LEA full scholarship to the Preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music As achild at the Peabody Conservatory, ■ Age 11 Peabody scholarship it was ingrained in Tori Amos that discontinued because of reluctance to read from sheet music and an increasing female composers didn’t have the same interest in rock and pop music ■ Age 14 Began playing in piano bars, opportunities as men. So when a chaperoned by her father, Reverend one-in-a-billion chance came her way, she Edison Amos ■ Age 21 Following several years doing couldn’t resist ... the rounds of the piano-bar circuit in the DC area, moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career HE IS, as they say, adifferent kettle of ■ Age 25 Releases the debut album fish, altogether. For some, American YKant Tori Read from her band of the singer/songwriter/performer Tori same name; it has long been out of Amos is many things: afirebrand of circulation, with no sign of it being S individualism, atorchbearer for idiosyn- reissued crasy, abeacon of light for those wavering ■ Age 27 Releases Little Earthquakes; between independency and soul-selling. sets out her stall with songs about sexual To others, she is the oddest side of odd: the assault, identity crises, religion and sexual woman breast feeding apiglet on the cover of awakening her third solo album, Boys for Pele;the woman ■ Age 33 Causes something of afuss who unabashedly engages with songs that with the album cover of Boys for Pele, explicitly reference events from her life (rape, which depicts her breast feeding apiglet religion,sexual awakening, marriage, miscar- ■ Age 38: One year after her daughter, riage, gender issues)aswell as topics not usu- Natashya, is born, releases the concept ally coveredbyafemale pop star with apiano covers album Strange Little Girls,which (misogyny, homophobia, masochism and ... features songs about women written by beekeeping as asource of female empower- men (including 10CC’s I’m Not in Love, ment). Eminem’s 97 Bonnie and Clyde,and Amos is at it again, but this time her new Slayer’s Raining Blood)yet sung from a record is another utterly different kettle of fish. female perspective Released on the classical label Deutsche Gram- ■ Age 39 Concept album Scarlet’s Walk mophon, Night of Hunters is aconcept album explores topics such as pornography, comprising a21st-century song cycle inspired misogyny, homophobia, masochism and by classical music themes. Native American history Autobiographically set in arambling Geor- ■ Age 45 Comic Book Tattoo: Narrative gian house on the outskirts of Kinsale, Co Cork, Art Inspired by the Lyrics and Music of any resemblance to Amos’s house there is quite Tori Amos,edited by Rantz Hoseley, wins likely deliberate: “It’s asafe house. Iflee situa- the 2009 Eisner Award tions, experiences and people to get there; it pro- ■ Age 48 Releases Night of Hunters,a tects me, and helps me reinform myself.” The song cycle featuring variations on a record’s themes touch on mythology, conflicts, theme, paying tribute to classical music tolerances and resolutions within marriage, and composers such as Schubert, Bach, Satie, the dual nature of what she refers to as “the Debussy and Chopin hunter” and “the hunted”. It is, all told, an incredibly ambitious piece of work by avirtu- osic artist at the height of her narrative and “I’d like to see myself known as acomposer, musical powers. It’s also abit mystifying, out- and Ithink my work will move more into that. doing Kate Bush and leaping over Joanna I’m not surewhere it’s all going, but I’d like to Newsom in terms of theme, execution, quirk thinkI’m carving my own niche for what feels and charm. right at the time.” Here, in the baroque, brothelesque basement Does she agree that she has one of the most of aLondon hotel, Amos is smaller than you distinctive back catalogues of the past 20 years? might think, smarter than smart, a48-year-old “There’s alot there, for sure,” she says, “but I mixture of petite, pithy and panache. own my own publishing and copyright, and I’ve Deutsche Grammophon approached her, she had that for over 20 years now. Iremember all starts: “They have adoctor of musicology, and kinds of people would approach my father, who he made apoint of seeing some of my live haslooked after that side of things for me for a shows. Along the way, he asked me how Ifelt long time,and they wanted me to sign away my about21st-century song cycles based on clas- publishing and copyright for very little and for a sical themes. Isaid: Tall order, easy to get long time. But my father said, ‘If so many people wrong, but too tempting to say no to.” want my copyright why shouldn’t we want it, It was also achallenge that Amos, aformer pop and rock, and her dislikeofreading sheet lessness and melody, Night of Hunters works as this is just irresistible.” ‘I’d like to see myself known as too?’ Ihave to thank him, every day, for the busi- child prodigy, couldn’t resist; by the age of five music, spelling the end of her classical training. much as asong cycle as ahighly intelligent pop It’s 20 years since Little Earthquakes,her acomposer’: Tori Amos on ness nous to question that. So it’s all about the shewas composing instrumental piano pieces, “They said, ‘What do you want to be?’ and I album (in other words, you don’t have to have debutalbum, was released, and from then to carving out aniche for herself catalogue: to do good work with it,build on it, and ashort time later she won afull scholarship said, ‘I want to be acomposer.’ They said, ‘A an in-depth knowledge of classical music to, you now, one imagines, she has been dragged find different perspectives with it.” to the Preparatory division of the Peabody Con- female composer? Be aconcert pianist: you know, dig it). It arrives at apoint where it can sit through the hedgerows and back again. “There Continuallyaltering perspectives have main- servatory of Music at the John Hopkins Univer- have achance, maybe one in abillion. Unless, of comfortably alongside pop music’s more off- have been tumultuous times,” she says, tained Amos’s enriching creative output over sity in Baltimore. By the age of 11, the scholar- course, you want to go to the pop world.’ So I beat offerings; it is, in effect, areal work of “because in creating there has been, can be, a the past two decades. We’ll see her and her ship wasrescinded; her precocious interest in thought, one in abillion? I’ll take those odds one intensely personal musical creativity by abona delicious, excruciating process in composing. string quartet embrace her ever-changing day.” fide artist. “It’s avery lonely experience –itisn’t like jam- moods and music when she arrives in Dublin Presented with the opportunity of the song “The real danger would be to have done a ming with people –and you push yourself some- next week. “If you start repeating yourself,” she cycle, Amos agreed to forge ahead, albeit with prog rock/classical hybrid,” Amos says, “which I times to feel things, in away as awriter, that per- says, amid the burgundy chintz and ornate curl- certain conditions: she needed the tools with think would have diluted the work. Iwould love haps other people would want to deny or con- icues of the hotel’s dungeon, “then it’s the begin- which to work, and they had to supply her with if people got the background, because if you are clude too quickly. Instead Isay: this happened, ning of the end.” Which is, she muses, adif- all the music. Deutsche Grammophon’s execu- taking on board aclassical form, like asong so let’s go back into it and investigate. You need ferent realm altogether, aplace where what she ❝ tive producer, Dr Alexander Buhr, then pro- cycle, it’s got to work as apiece of sonic architec- to go back in because you really need to find out terms “important work” isn’t undertaken any- If you start repeating vided her with extensive biographical details on ture; it has to have acertain amount of plinths how you feel about it. No sentiment, either –get more. some of the great composers of the past 400 in order to make it work, so that it’s not just an out of that frame of mind.” “It becomes akind of clinging on to acareer yourself then it’s the years, as well as recordings. Amos then applied exercise in merging styles. What I’d hoped was Where does she see herself, in terms of pop maintenance, instead of carving out new terri- “a very studied devotion, and adelicate ruthless- to walk avery thin tightrope with all that’s con- music? Does she view what she does as being in tory. But I’m Tori Amos, so I’m drawn to ness” to poring over the works of, among nected with the record.” competition with the likes of Lady Gaga or Katy carving out new territory pretty much all the beginning of the end. But I’m others, Schubert, Debussy, Satie, Bach, Chopin, But doesn’t she walk athin line most, if not Perry, for example? “Oh, no! They’re great at time.” Granados, Mussorgsky and Schumann.